"We spend our life until we're twenty
deciding what parts of ourselves to put in the bag, and
we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out
again."

~Robert Bly

It was 1997 when Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf (both
Jungian-oriented therapists) offered us a way out of
Robert Bly's bag. I didn't discover Romancing the Shadow
until last spring when it came out in paperback. I was so
impressed that it became an immediate supplemental text for
my Advanced Class on the Enneagram. How better to recognize
the shadow paradox and the tensions between our split
selves? How better to integrate the conscious and the
unconscious, open up space and energy for individuation
and transformation, and start to dissolve the ego defenses
than through shadow-work?

Here is a clear, descriptive practical guide - a possible
substitute in a culture that offers no initiation ceremonies
for acknowledging, owning, and shaping the shadow to reclaim
our soul and become whole. Romancing the Shadow
encourages us, in a sense, to have a subversive love affair
with our dark side while, at the same time, attempting to
shake us out of our self-deceptions.

Opening the book, we're grabbed instantly by a powerful
introductory chapter. Specialized chapters follow asking us
to "honor, respect, and welcome" the shadow in all
our relationships: parent-child, marriage, divorce, in work,
in friendships, and through all stages of life. The book
closes with a "Who's Who in Greek Myth," detailed
reference notes, and a practical handbook of
self-observation tips on shadow-work which enables us
to identify the repetitive patterns, compulsions, and
extroverted self-contempt that sabotage our ego-ideal
intentions.

Uncovering the hidden secret shames and the
gap between who we are and who we think we are is, as
the authors say, like "mining the dark recesses of
our human psyche." Yet, Ken Wilber asserts in Zweig's
other book, Meeting the Shadow, that "we are
duped into equating the negative (dark) with the
undesirable." The result? We shut out half of who we
are. Only integrating the light and dark makes us whole.
In this reviewer's opinion, Romancing the Shadow
offers the tools.